


After the War

by h00ligan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Angst, Bad Parent John Winchester, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Dean Winchester, Trans Male Dean Winchester, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29022192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h00ligan/pseuds/h00ligan
Summary: There's a year after the apocalypse where everything is... normal. At least on the surface. Dean's life is completely destroyed, and he has to put a brave face on, go back to Lisa and Ben, because that's what Sam wanted.And God, Dean hates him for it sometimes.
Relationships: Ben Braeden & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	After the War

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning for descriptions of Johns abuse of Dean and Sam

_April 15, 2010_

Dean comes to Lisa in Baby, after she’s repaired. It physically hurts to drive her, knowing all the little moments stored in her from the life he and Sam shared on the road the last five years, without fearing Dad’s wrath for letting a greasy thumbprint ruin the upholstery. The toy soldier in the backseat is a punch in the gut, even when he can’t see it. Under the rug, Sam’s initials are carved into the car, and he put it back together like that after the accident.

There’s no body for Dean to bury. It’s just all these little things from Sam, and his clothes he put in the trunk, because he was getting him back.

Lisa doesn’t ask what happens when she sees how broken he is as he shows up at the door. At Bobby’s while they rebuilt Baby, he couldn’t even say Sam’s name without it getting caught in his throat.

Dean’s 31, and he’s alone in the world.

_April 18, 2010_

The nice thing about living somewhere that actually had _ties_ was that he could find a job, a real honest job easily. As an act of goodwill, Bobby gave him one last Social Security card, ID, and passport. _Dean Smith_. It’s a little bit ironic but he didn’t know how to describe the experience to Bobby. He has a bank account now, a debit card gotten honest, and now an actual job in construction.

The good thing about construction is you can’t really talk over all the noise. Just mindless, hard labor that takes it out of Dean enough that maybe, just maybe, he can sleep tonight. The neighbor, Sid, got him the job after hearing the short version—Dean and Lisa were old flames that met up briefly a few years ago, kept in touch long distance, and now he was in a position to live with her.

Dean is right, it’s the first time in weeks he gets his four hours, Lisa tucked close against his chest, hand resting against Castiel’s handprint, and in his dreams, he remembers Cas. What he wouldn’t do for that fucking white noise he calls his true voice.

_May 2, 2010_

Dean knows this day is coming for weeks. Lisa knows, too. It’s a Sunday, which means no work, which is good, because he doesn’t know if he could physically drag himself out of bed to work when all he’s thinking of is how Sam should be 27 today.

God, 27. He really wouldn’t be a kid anymore.

Lisa wakes him up with gentle kisses, and Dean stays very still for a long time until Lisa gets up to shower and Dean gets dressed enough to go to Baby in the garage and get out the trunk of Sam’s things, and a half drank bottle of Jack.

Dean hates this. He hates that all this was set in motion because he gave in to Alistair. Sam never deserved this. He was… he was supposed to be married to Jess right now, working at a law firm, with a snotty nosed toddler. And a dog. Sam always wanted a dog. This was his fault. He dragged Sam back into the life because he wouldn’t let John just _stay gone_.

And for the first time in a month, Dean prays to Cas. Well, pray is a generous way of putting it, as he puts the empty bottle in the backseat and sits on the hood and is just quiet enough, so Ben doesn’t hear him curse Cas out.

“Cas, you ass, I know you can hear me. I know…. You brought me back. Why the hell can’t you bring him back? He deserves it! He saved the world! And I’m here… I’m getting the respect from hunters, for what? Because Michael tossed me aside like a rag doll? Get down here, so I can kick your ass, you self-important piece of shit! What, God’s not around so you get to forget you rebelled? Come down here! You can’t take it? You can’t take what you doled out on me when I tried to say yes to Michael? You bitch!”

Lisa hears, though, holds him through the next bout of tears. “Dean… none of this… what happened to Sam, why your friend won’t hear, none of this is your fault. Do you want to call Bobby? I’m sure he’s missing him about now, too.”

Dean shook his head. “Everyone wanted me to have a clean break. Deleted my number off their phones and everything. The life is too easy to get back into. They didn’t want me tempted.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Dean, you know I usually don’t do this, but I’m going to take Ben out for a movie and to the park. You just… take your space. Grieve how you need to.”

“I love you, Lis.”

“Well, I sure hope you do,” she said with a teasing smile.

Dean’s version of “grieving how he needs to” is kicking Sid’s ass at pool and making him buy drinks for the rest of the afternoon.

“Listen, Dean, I’m not going to say you’re always the happiest camper around, but even you don’t usually drink this much.”

“’s my brother’s birthday.”

“Oh. Call go bad?”

“He died a month ago.” That’s all the explanation Sid needs to let him keep drinking and buy his motel room for the night. And, as much as Dean hates to say it, it’s the most at home he’s felt since this shit happened.

It doesn’t change the nagging voice in his head that reminds him that his death anniversary is coming up.

_June 5, 2010_

Dean’s body has adjusted to the hard labor and now the nightmares are back. When it’s not Sam jumping into the Pit, it’s being tortured in Hell. If it’s not being tortured in Hell, it’s doing the _torturing_ in Hell. Or taking his knife to Alistair. When it’s not that, it’s John. When it’s not John, it’s Azazel. When it’s not Azazel, it’s the fire. And the fire always makes him think of Michael entering that room to enter Adam’s helpless body, taking _his_ place.

“Please, Cas,” he whispers, hoping in vain for the deep, restful sleep the angels grant. It doesn’t come. No word from that dick.

_June 20, 2010_

Dean finally found a priest who’s a half decent drinker. He’s a faithful man of the cloth who still believes that what happened during the Apocalypse happened for a reason, but hey, it’s better than having someone who didn’t know Dean Winchester and the things that went bump in the night.

“Anything weird around, Padre?”

“Son, are you asking me for a job?”

A lump caught in his throat, and he smiled. “Not at all. Hey, we can hook you up with some half decent cabinets. Call it a donation if you want.”

_July 4, 2010_

Dean had only celebrated Fourth of July once. When he set those rockets off with Sammy as kids while John was passed out on the bed from taking advantage of his Veteran’s discount at the liquor store.

Dean had now cooked a few meals in his life but he was nowhere near ready to start barbecuing, so Sid invited him and Lisa over.

“Really? No fourth of Julys? Wasn’t your Dad a vet?”

“Ah, you know how those Vietnam vets are. After Mom died, he kinda took advantage of any chance at cheap liquor he got. Closest I got were those community building things to keep the kids off the streets. One time I stole that Impala from him while he was out and I shot off fireworks in the middle of the woods.”

“Damn, man, you lived the craziest life.”

“Oh, you have _no_ idea.” Definitely wasn’t like family bike rides on the trails every Saturday morning before going for ice cream.

“Why’d you put that car away and get that truck, anyway?”

“You kiddin’ me? My whole _childhood’s_ in that car. My dad bought it a little before he proposed to my Mom. She was my 18th birthday present. Baby’s my life, I can’t let her get dented up by some drywall.” _Can’t let anyone see that trunk_.

_August 18, 2010_

It’s Ben’s birthday, and it’s virtually a neighborhood bash. Dean hasn’t been in a party this big since the run in with the pagan gods on the eve of the Apocalypse, and it shows. He orders a cake, some pizza, gets the yard manicured, and for once, it’s a great day.

He starts off by playing catch with Ben, then letting him try to mow the lawn some. He doesn’t see the appeal in it. Strangely enough, Dean does. It’s… something he can’t describe, to tuck in Ben, who’s well worn out, and clean up the living room and yard with Lisa after. He even manages to stay sober the whole day, not even indulging in a single beer. Hell, he even ate a salad. Who eats salads?

But a sober sleep is asleep with nightmares, and he tries, god, does he try, not to ask Cas for help. He does. He dreams of being elbows deep in some poor soul’s entrails.

His four hours are fine being two, right?

_September 18, 2010_

Lisa knows, by now, at least most of what happened since they parted ways. He doesn’t get into the gory details about the Apocalypse. She doesn’t need to know, and he can’t really talk about Adam yet. Lisa kisses him awake again.

“Happy resurrection day, darling.”

Dean groaned. “If it was so happy, the bastard who did it would call once in a while.”

Lisa’s expression softened. “Dean, I know you miss him. I hear you ask for him when you have nightmares.”

 _You don’t know the way I miss him, though_. Dean hasn’t felt _anything_ with Lisa the way he felt when Cas was beating the shit out of him for trying to say yes. And he hated himself for it.

“But. It’s a Saturday, and it’s nice out, and you don’t have work…”

“Might swing by the church later. After Father Stern’s mass. See if getting on that holy ground lets me have a better line to talk to the guy.”

“You sure you don’t want to go the next town over for that?” she asked, quietly.

“What, you think I can’t handle being in a place called St. Michael’s?” he asked, half joking.

“It’s just, you weren’t a fan of that stained-glass window when we went for Sam’s service.”

He pecked her lips. “It’s fine. Been five months. I’m a new man, practically. You know the last time I went five months without a job? After my seventeenth birthday. I mean, I wasn’t even _dead_ for five months.”

“You know, I don’t thank you enough.”

“For what?”

“Well, how good you are with Ben. You never slip and tell him about monsters or anything like that, you’re great with him.”

“Well, I raised Sammy after Mom died. Changed his diapers and everything. Yeah, one of the cops who had my dad in lockup while they were looking into my mom’s case taught me how to feed him and change him and all that jazz, then Dad didn’t want Sam to know about the monsters for a while. Back when we thought we could go home without knowing we picked a fight with a greater demon. Kept it quiet until he was… oh, probably about nine. And that was when dad was ditching us in shady motels for weeks at a time. Living like this… lips are sealed, baby.”

There was always a sad smile on Lisa’s face when he talked about his childhood. Really, it was one of the reasons he didn’t like talking about it. He’d been the subject of pity and inspiration porn to people inside and outside the life for as long as he can remember. The kid with an unstable home life who managed to excel in physics and math and chemistry (not that he’d let anyone know he actually did well in school without cheating) while raising a little brother. Then, there was people inside the life who didn’t like John and took their feelings out by using he and Sammy as puppets by saying that’s no way to raise a child, especially when he showed Uncle Bobby his first gun with pride and he heard yelling from the next room.

But, no, today was to celebrate his second chance at life. Pulled out of the dirt to get used as Michael’s meatsuit to make up for succumbing to torture. He would have a more positive spin on it if he could just talk to _Cas_ and he hadn’t just dumped him. Not for the first time, he sends a mental _fuck you_ , to the angel.

But for the first time, Dean has a dreamless six hours of sleep. Better than he’d gotten since before John died.

_September 26, 2010_

Sid invites him hunting with some guys from work, probably because he mentions he used to go hunting a lot with his dad and brother. First day of waterfowl, apparently. It’s the first time he drives Baby in months, and the guys whistle at the ride.

“Damn, Smith, I thought you got rid of that thing for the truck for the missus!”

“Nah, that was up to me. Baby’s never leaving my _sight_. She’s just got better trunk space.” It’s the first time in a long time that he opens the trunk, away from prying eyes so they don’t see the devil’s trap or the glint of thousands of dollars in weaponry and bag full of fake FBI badges. He trades out the silver bullets and rock salt in the rifle and closes it up. “Now I heard we’re supposed to be going hunting.”

It’s nice to be hunting. Less dangerous, this way. Still easy to focus his mind. Everyone else is drinking beer, but not him. He’s not feeling working drunk, and he feels himself slipping back into the hunter’s mindset, the safest place for him.

Throughout the day, Dean fires off five shots. He carries five ducks back to Baby, lined with a tarp.

“Damn, uh, you’re really good at that, huh?” someone, John, he thinks, says, a little hesitant.

“My dad was really into hunting. Took me and my brother every chance the guy got. Besides. I don’t like things with _feathers_ ,” he says, as he tosses the ducks in the trunk. He wants to think of Zachariah, or Michael, or Uriel, or Anna, when he says that, but just like every goddamn time, he’s thinking of Cas. Not a day goes by where he doesn’t think about how he hates the bastard for ignoring him.

“So, uh, what did you hunt?” John asked nervously.

“What didn’t we hunt?” Dean chuckled. “I mean, bucks, bears, mountain lion, bobcat, boar, elk, I mean, we even went after moose once. You should’ve seen my aim by the time I was eight.”

When Dean gets home and butchers the ducks in the basement, he pretends he doesn’t enjoy how close the sensation was to torturing souls in Hell.

Dean doesn’t get invited to another hunting outing. Every time he lets a little of his real life slip, people try to distance themselves.

_October 31, 2010_

Dean used to hate Halloween. Now, as a suburbanite, he kind of got it. It was a quaint little holiday now, and he forgot the real shit these people were ignorantly playing with. He even made Ben a wendigo costume.

“Are you sure it’s supposed to look like this?”

“Oh, believe me, I’m read up. _My_ dad, well, he was _huge_ into imaginary monsters. Kept pictures of everything.”

He and Lisa are Frankenstein’s monster and Frankenstein’s bride. He tells Lisa it’s because it’s one of the few monsters that doesn’t have a real life one to one connotation. Really, he’s just a huge fan of the book and movies. They drive Ben around in Baby, as a treat.

“Hey, there’s a toy soldier back here.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “You know, my brother stuck it there when he was four. Never managed to get it out.” It doesn’t hurt to talk about Sam like this now, not when he spends two hours asleep and six reading up on how to get people out of the Cage. Still nothing, but he’d try. He’d die trying to get him out again.

It’s almost painfully normal to look through Ben’s candy, sneak a few pieces for himself and Lisa, and even thinks of Gabriel, in passing. Did he love this holiday? He had to, with all the candy and trickery.

He knows what day’s coming up, though, and that’s why he dreams of yellow eyes and a mother on the ceiling the same way Jess was.

_November 2, 2010_

Dean’s nightmares are always bad this time of year. But this year, it hurts worst because another punch in the gut of his memory is that the baby he held as he watched his home burn was dead now, too. His nightmares aren’t of Hell, they’re of the fire, Azazel, and John always using this day to get absolutely trashed and wreck Dean’s shit. One time he had to hide a broken rib from school from one of his classic November 2nd meltdowns.

Sam always used to buy a votive candle at whatever church was closest this time of year. It seemed only right to continue the tradition. He goes to the All Souls mass and there are four candles. Mary Winchester, November 2, 1983. John Winchester, September 28, 2006. Sam Winchester, April 10, 2010. Adam Milligan, April 10, 2010. He’s tempted to buy one for Sam Campbell, but his grandfather never knew him as his grandson, so he leaves well enough alone.

Lisa asks if he wants to take some time off to visit Mary’s grave, and he shakes his head, tells her he’s never gone, there wasn’t a body.

In reality, it scares Dean that the only body in his family there is to bury was the one he wishes there wasn’t.

_November 25, 2010_

It’s Dean’s first Thanksgiving. Which is weird. They don’t have turkey because Dean got a gorgeous buck first day of the season, which, even he has to admit, is better than whatever passed for his and Sam’s Thanksgivings. Dean’s always been a holiday guy, especially ones that revolved around food or sex, which was thankfully most of them. Sid and Annie come up, because there’s too much venison in the freezer for the three of them.

Dean’s not really a wine person, but Sid brings it, and he’d feel like a dick if he asked for some PBR and pours it into everyone’s glasses, grabbing his by the stem, confused when Lisa starts chuckling at him and rubbing his shoulder. Sometimes he feels like one of those feral children who were never exposed to the outside world and has to learn everything from the ground up. But it can be kind of nice, sometimes.

Dean’s still not a cook, but he’s one hell of a butcher. It only took a couple days to learn al the right cuts for everything and he ended up butchering everyone’s bucks for them, but he enjoys it, stops ignoring how close it feels to torturing people in Hell, because it’s the safest way to give into that urge, the one that he never even told Sam about.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about not bringing you to first day of hunting, it’s just—”

“Oh, I know how I sounded when we went waterfowl hunting. Totally fine. Even with my hunting buddies the only part we did together was the butchering, you know?”

Annie makes a hell of a pumpkin pie, and Lisa’s face softens at how enthusiastic he is about it.

“So, the pie thing.” She states when they’ve left and Ben retreats to his room.

“Yeah, the pie thing.” He half-laughs. “I, uh, you know all the places we went on the road, right? I mean, I’ve been all over the continent. And when we were kids, up until I was seven, we wouldn’t stay in one place more than a week. We’d get a month if we were lucky when I started school because you can’t move kids around like that, but Dad was still never around. He’d leave me some money and I’d walk Sam over to a diner. You know, every small town has a diner. And every diner has pie. It’s like the Scooby Doo thing.”

“I cannot believe I’ve fallen for the world’s most mysterious man,” she smiles into a kiss. “Uh, something go wrong when you went waterfowl?”

Dean pulls back at that. “Yeah, it’s my fault. You know, it was my first time driving Baby in months. First time getting my guns out in months. And I accidentally slipped into hunter mode. And when I saw the wings, and the feathers, all I could think about was—”

“The angels?”

He nodded. “I just… you’d think demons are the worst you can get. But angels are just… total assholes. They _resurrected_ my dead half brother to lure me into a trap so I’d say yes, and when I didn’t, they took _him_.”

“Listen. You did what you had to do. And nobody blames you.” She ran her thumb over his cheek, and he leans into the touch. “This is the most you’ve told me about what happened since April.”

“Well, you know, perspective. Now, with all that bullshit behind me, I, what we have isn’t perfect, but it’s _ours_.” He turns his head to kiss Lisa’s palm.

Dean has a nightmare about Sam jumping into the Pit again, and Lisa’s there to rub his shoulders and be the big spoon. More than Cas has ever done for him.

_December 2, 2010_

Dean starts eating with the rest of the guys during lunch, but still mostly stays quiet. They ask about his life before Lisa, and he tells part of the truth. Moving around between jobs, a girl wherever he went, but Lisa was the one who he remembered best, so when he had cancer in 2007, he came back to see her one more time when he thought he wouldn’t make it, and they hit it off again.

“So, you’re a dead man, and you high tail it across the country instead of seeing a doctor?”

“Well, I mean, family business doesn’t pay great, we were tapped from a car wreck and my Dad’s funeral. Then Sam ended up laid up in a hospital when he accidentally tripped a trap and he almost died.”

“Lotta almost dying in your family business for you to get shit pay.”

Dean can only laugh and clink his cup against his. “Why’d you think I left after Sam died?”

“But, let me get this straight, you see Ben, you think this kid is yours, and you just go ahead to get attached?”

“Listen, I know that deadbeat dad life. I didn’t want him to live it if there’s something I could do about it. And even though he’s not… goddamn if I don’t love that boy like he’s mine.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have a kid of my own with how spoiled they are about everything.”

“Heard that. Ever since I was 14, on Sam’s birthday, we’d sneak out of wherever we were staying, drive to a Dairy Queen, and I had money saved up from weeks of pool to get him a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. Ben’s asking for an _iPad_ for Christmas.”

“I mean, _plus_ the way you gotta treat em, now, like a little slap is gonna get CPS on your ass.”

“What?”

“You know, I mean, it never did any harm.”

Dean’s expression hardened. “John, right? Funny, that was my dad’s name. Remember first day of waterfowl? See, my dad took my for shooting practice every chance I got since I was six because he’d ditch us in a dirty motel room all day for weeks at a time and no sign of him except some food money on the nightstand which was never enough. I had my first gun of my own when I was eleven because it was _my_ ass if something happened to Sammy. He was a _real_ ‘beatings will continue until morality improves’ guy and we had a quick exit strategy in case CPS ever came a-knockin’ after Sammy told the school nurse how I actually broke my rib. So, no, I don’t think I actually _get what you mean_ after my brother went to Stanford with a broken nose and a bloody lip.” He stood up and got back to work. “You don’t wanna see what else is in that trunk, John, so don’t ever talk about how I should be treating my boy.”

_December 14, 2010_

There are messages on Dean’s old “work-phone” which he checks every day in case Bobby makes some headway or Cas comes back. And, there it is. Bobby’s number. He almost collapses in relief. “Hey, Bobby,” he chokes out. “Thought you weren’t talkin’ to me no more.”

“Yeah, well, nothing on Sam, yet, but you and that girl and kid of yours gotta _stay in_ for the next few days. There’s vampires the next town over, and we don’t want ‘em catching your scent. I already sent Rufus on the problem, shouldn’t be long. I was wondering if you—”

“Got a guest room? For Rufus, ‘course I do, Bobby. You know that. Hey, I know you’re busy, but,” he sighs. “I haven’t given up on him, you know? I’m looking for every book that’s short of summoning a crossroads demon for him. And I haven’t forgotten, either, about you or the guys. You have to know that.”

“I know that, ya damn idjit. I ain’t stopped lookin’ either. Listen, I know I said it’s best to make that clean break, but if it’s treating you like this, I can call once a month or something.”

“Sure. I mean, more than I’ve heard from that winged asshole since April. I just, we don’t gotta talk shop, but it’s bad enough to lose one dad. When it happened, it just kinda felt like when Dad told Sam to stay gone after he went for Stanford.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t a great idea. Anyway, he’ll be rolling around tonight.”

Dean calls for Lisa when he heads inside. “Something wrong?”

“Uh, no, but you and Ben gotta stay in for the next few days. Say you have stomach flu or something.”

“What? Why?”

“Vampires towards the north of the county.” When Lisa opens her mouth, he holds a hand up. “ _I’m_ not hunting, I’m staying in with you. Bobby called to give me fair warning because vampires aren’t exactly fans of Winchesters. Rufus is handling it, so I offered the guest room, because take it from me, the motel sucks.”

“And he can keep quiet around Ben?”

“Lis, come on, what I’ve been doing since I was fifteen, he’s been doing way longer. He can keep a low profile.”

“He buys his own beer.”

Dean smiles and moves forward to kiss Lisa. “Even trade.”

_December 25, 2010_

Dean loves Christmas. He’s the one who wakes up Lisa with kisses, for once, smiling when she grumbled lightheartedly. “I don’t know who the kid is, you or Ben.”

“Come on, Lis, it’s Christmas. I haven’t had a Christmas since 2007, and I almost got ganked by a couple’a pagan deities.”

“What, no Christmas while you were doomsday prepping?”

“Ah, Cas killed the mood, kept saying how Jesus wasn’t born in December.” He rolled out of bed and got dressed. “I don’t know, maybe we should’ve put _you_ on top of the tree.”

“What, because I’m so shrill that I leave you passed out on the floor?” Lisa asked with a joking tone.

“I was gonna say because you’re the star that guided me where I’m supposed to be, but if you want to make this about the angels again—”

He’s cut off by another kiss. “Still a smooth talker, aren’t we?”

Sid, Annie, and Father Schmidt come over for Christmas dinner, though thankfully, the priest declines Dean’s offer to lead prayer over the venison still in the freezer. Ben gets his iPad, though Dean had to work a couple of extra shifts in order to pay for it, but it was worth it to see the look on the kid’s face and how tight he hugged him. He also gets Ben and Lisa rings made from silver, Lisa gets a pair of earrings that match what he was able to look at from her jewelry collection. Ben gets him a tie, and it’s one of those things. Those things that are just minor presents to most normal people, but Christmas with the Winchesters usually involved adding to the collective family stockpile of weapons. Nothing so normal as… a tie.

And, there’s a package from Sioux Falls. Inside is a journal, one that looks kind of like John’s but with black binding. In the cover, there’s a note. _I don’t want to see any lore in here, boy. -BS._

When everyone leaves and Ben heads up to his room to use his new iPad once it’s set up, Lisa leans against Dean on their couch. “Do I want to know what you did for Christmas?”

“Well, Christmas is near a solstice, and monsters don’t take holidays off, but he’d take a small job and let me off the hook because he didn’t want Sammy alone. Gave us the usual food money, I’d triple it with pool, took us to a Chinese food place. Put him to bed early, steal something from Wal-Mart after the one time I accidentally gave him girl toys when I broke into the nice house up the street. It was… nice. Sam was learning how to get some sticky fingers, too, so we’d swap. Dad got me guns every year after my eleventh birthday, gave ‘em to Sam after his ninth.”

“It’s a miracle you’re like this after all that.”

“Well, I had someone really special teach me how to be normal. You wouldn’t believe me. Absolutely gorgeous, great mom, and her kid…”

“I’m gonna head upstairs. Just give me a few minutes before you follow. Right?”

God, Dean loved Christmas.

_January 14, 2011_

Father Schmidt buys Dean’s beer today and invites him to his apartment instead of the bar they usually frequent.

“Okay, Winchester, I’ve got questions.”

“Shoot.”

“You know, so, resurrection. When Jesus came back, he still had the nail holes and the hole from the spear. How’d you—” he gestured.

“Oh, I was hellhound kibble. And _dead_ for four months. This,” he gestured to his body. “Practically reconstructed. I mean, my top surgery scars, gone, my downstairs, looking like I was _born_ with it.”

Schmidt made a confused face. “You’re?”

“Trans, yeah,” he chuckled. “I told my Dad when I was eight, he was _so_ relieved he didn’t have to raise a girl. Listen, man upstairs doesn’t give a shit what the hairless apes do, you know? Joshua said nobody’s heard from the guy in 2000 years.”

“So, Ben—”

“ _Actually_ isn’t mine, like I’ve told you a hundred times. She had a type. Anyway, with Adam, too. We gave him a Hunter’s funeral, proper pyre and everything, what was left of him after the ghouls ate him. And when Death took a little stroll in Sioux falls during the apocalypse, Bobby’s wife, she was _cremated_.”

“So, it fully repairs your body?”

“Mostly. I never saw Adam’s arm, and he came down from upstairs, but me, when I got pulled _up_.” he rolled up his sleeve. “Castiel left a little calling card.” The handprint was a comfort, now. He usually didn’t let anyone touch him there except Lisa, but he let Schmidt run his hand over it.

“Castiel, the, uh, angel of Thursday.”

Dean snickered. “You know, I actually didn’t hear that one before. Friggin’ embarrassing of Heaven to get their Michael vessel pulled up by the Angel of Thursday.”

“That’s how it works?”

“That’s how what works?”

“If you were meant to be possessed, why aren’t you?”

“God, I never really told you about this shit, did I?”

“You always said you had to be drunker.”

“Well, it’s been a while. So, when an angel takes a Vessel, like, each one has a bloodline they track, right? Our bloodline tracks Michael and Lucifer, the Winchester one. Up in Pontiac, that Jimmy Novak guy who went missing? That’s Castiel. His bloodline tracks with that. And before they take the vessel, unlike demons, angels need consent. Which is how we put off the apocalypse by a year, by holding off on that big yes.”

“And that’s why angels don’t come up.”

“Hate to break it to you, padre, but angels are just grade-a dicks. They look at us like we’re ants. I thought Cas cared about humanity, but the second he thought he’d be forgiven by Heaven for rebelling he just,” whistled and pointed up.

“His leaving you hurts more than how any angel’s treatment of you does,” the priest realized. “You were friends.”

“I thought we could be a little something more than that, but hey, family’s family, and I promised Sam I’d go back to Lisa.”

“And you don’t love her.”

Dean paused. “Not in the way I should, I don’t. Not as much as I love him.”

_January 24, 2011_

  1. Dean Winchester is 32 years old, and he never thought he’d make it that far. The victory rings somewhat hollow without his brother around, but it’s still something for someone who thought he’d never hit 30. But also, his body was practically reconstructed in September so, is he two and a half? Or, he spent 40 years in hell. Is he 72? This shit makes his brain hurt. He always tried to tell Sam he wasn’t the stupid one in the family, but thinking about this mess makes him feel otherwise. Either way, he hadn’t celebrated his birthday since he was 16, that first solo hunt kind of ruined birthdays for him for, well, forever. There’s an idle thought to go to that convent, but their graves were unmarked, and their bones were salted and burned. He hoped those nuns were in Heaven right now, living the life they should’ve lived if people weren’t such dicks.



He wakes up to the smell of bacon and pancakes. Weird. He didn’t tell Lisa it was his birthday. But, there she was, carrying the plate and orange juice into his bed. “What’s all this about?”

“Bobby called the home phone last week and told me your birthday was coming up.”

“Yeah, I don’t really do my birthday.”

“Well, that was _old_ Dean. I thought we were being _new_ Dean now.”

Dean sighs. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We’re doing normal Dean. And… normal Dean wants to go to Olive Garden?” he asks, a little hopefully. Lisa smiles and takes a bit off the end of his bacon.

Dean remembers Famine. How he said there’s a deep, aching emptiness inside him. Well, the son of a bitch was right about that much. Whatever happiness he had here, it was superficial, all so Sam didn’t give everything up in vain. Dean hadn’t been _whole_ since he was dragged to Hell. And it’d only gotten worse since Cas left and he couldn’t distract from it with violence.

Ben is getting a little too old for snowmen and snowball fights, and Dean regrets not being there for him when he wasn’t. There’s not much to do outside when Ben’s interests are in summer activities, and he files it away somewhere to take a little vacation down south during the winter so Ben can have some fun.

He gets a phone call from Bobby for his birthday, and it feels nice. He misses him almost more than anyone else in the life. Hunters, most of them come and go, go more often than not, but Bobby’s been there for him since that year he wasn’t able to bring himself to speak. Bobby tells him about the scrapyard and how there are some cars he could do with Dean’s help fixing up, Dean tells him about Ben joining the wrestling team and how it reminds him of those couple months at Sonny’s. There’s not a mention of a monster, hunt, angel, or Sam, and for a bit, he gets to convince himself he’s just a normal stepdad living a normal life.

_February 14, 2011_

It’s a first for Dean to be in a committed relationship on Valentine’s Day. He’s the one waking Lisa up, he makes plans in advance, sends flowers to her work, puts chocolates in her lunch box, the whole nine.

Lisa, with her sense of humor, sends a massive teddy bear to the house he’s working on and Dean gets some good-natured jibes and whipping noises.

Dean pays some 17-year-old to watch over Ben, as much as he thinks the kid can handle himself while they go out to dinner and to a hotel for the night, but he slips some holy water in the lemonade she has and there’s no reaction. He knows he’s being too cautious, that he’s also waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, Sam was happy like this with Jess, and his closest friend was a demon. He can’t be sloppy like that.

They take Baby to the nice restaurant a few towns over and lets the valet handle it for once.

And Dean _definitely_ doesn’t have to bother with nightmares.

_March 23, 2011_

It’s Lisa’s birthday, according to her student he ran into at the grocery store a week earlier, interrogating him if he was going to get her anything.

Dean surprises her by picking Lisa up early from yoga class in Baby, with Ben in the backseat. It’s the most asphalt she’s seen in ten months.

“Oh, and what’s so important about today?”

“I don’t know, maybe the love of my life’s birthday?”

“And what’s your master plan?”

“Well we gotta get on the road soon, it’s 2 and a half hours to Lake Michigan.” Lisa grins and hops in shotgun.

“I only told you about going like, once, three months ago.”

“And I was listening. Now come on, we’re burning daylight!”

_April 10, 2011_

A year. It’s been a year since Dean lost everything in his old life and had to build a new one from scratch. He remembers the first time he realized he’d never seen a hunter die of old age, when he was fourteen. It was one of Danny Elkins’ friend. He resigned himself to dying young when he was barely in high school.

Now… it doesn’t feel the same. He doesn’t feel like _Dean_ anymore, because unlike John, he never had anyone teach him what it meant for the war to be over.

He heads up to the bar with Sid after work, not talking much until Sid breaks the comfortable silence.

“It the anniversary?”

Dean takes down another shot. “Yeah.”

“Talk to Father Schmidt about it?”

“All the damn time, Sid.”

“You never said how it happened.”

“That’s cause I watched the whole goddamn thing happen and I don’t have an explanation that won’t send me to the nuthouse.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can see someone who looks like Sam. God, he’s drunk. It happened a few times before, almost always about two shots before he blacked out.

A week later he realizes he probably wasn’t hallucinating his brother.


End file.
